


Lost and Found

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [626]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, possible spoilers for latest episode arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:53:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22618948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: Anonymous askedJeff aboard the Zero-X for eight years? I’m sure being by yourself with no chance of rescue for that long would be pretty hard on a person.
Series: prompt ficlets [626]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/53353
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Lost and Found

Jeff scratches his beard as he floats easily down the narrow, cramped tube towards his makeshift ag bay. His strawberry plants were close to being ready to harvest, and he was almost drooling at the thought.

Whoever put some non-standard fruit seeds in the survival crate he’d found in the hold, well, he’d like to buy them a castle.

“Hello Agatha, hello Edna, hello Grace,” he sings out as he swings into the hold that was now a garden blooming in the depths of space.

The three maintenance droids chirped happily. Grace rolled over, scanning his boots for possible hazards.

Jeff sighed; where could he go that wasn’t here or hard vacuum. But Grace was diligent, and he’d learned it was better not to argue.

The strawberries were a brilliant red, and Jeff drank them in with his eyes, absorbing the colour before delicately picking the ripest. The blast of flavour made him moan.

Only when the last of the sweetness was settled on his tongue did he continue his inspections. The rice in the hydroponics bay were swaying slightly with the currents of the recycling water. Jeff took a moment to look at the water quality, still worried about the patches he’d patched onto the water filter.

As always, the last stop were the trees; they’d been saplings at launch, a science experiment for exploring forces on plant cells. Now they were tall and thin, the leaves never a deep green as they craved something that space couldn’t provide.

Jeff had set their tubs up by the portal anyway, their sun a slightly brighter star glinting in the endless night. Five trees, and it made sense somewhere in his mind to bequeath one to each son. Scott’s tree’s leaves were curling slightly, and Jeff paused to tweak the nutrient mix.

“There you go, son” he told the tree, rubbing a hurting leaf between finger and thumb. “Let’s see if that helps.” 

Jeff moved slowly down the row, resting his palm on John’s tree’s bark, shifting the hose that fed Virgil’s tree a little closer to the base.

Alan’s tree was now taller than him, and Jeff had to reach to pluck a dead leaf from the tree’s crown. “Look at that,” he told Agatha as she buzzed forward to vacuum up the dropped detritus. She liked to keep the ag bay tidy. “Look at him grow.”

As always, Jeff finished his inspections by the portal, finding his star and resting there, his back to his trees and his gaze towards home.


End file.
